An Octave Above Thunder presents a collection of poems spanning more than twenty years in the career of Carol Muske, who has won acclaim for work that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and technical craft. This volume brings together new poems and a generous selection of work from Muske's five previous published collections. What most distinguishes Carol Muske's poetry is her awareness of the complicated web into which the personal and the political, the familial and the feminist, are woven. The poet's argument with the visual world, and Muske's talent for scene setting and drama, are at the core of these poems, in which we hear the "dazzling, repetitive once" of thunder, of intimate and public speech, of the heart talking to itself. Muske's poems are filed with audible contemplation: invocation, echo, dreamsong, dirge. Her lyrical precision, her assured touch, and her exacting clarity make her one of the most talented poets of her generation.